Urology demands!

High throughput? High pressure? We can help.

Although Relaymed is designed for the whole primary care sector, we recognize that practices and physician office labs that conduct a higher volume of tests will benefit more than others. For instance, urology practices experience particularly high levels of patient throughput, which results in considerable pressure for staff.

We knew that if we could make it work in an environment as demanding as a urology practice then it would work anywhere. As a result, the benefits they reap from utilizing Relaymed are more pronounced. So we worked with one of the largest urology groups in the US to do just that.

Getting the correct balance of quality and quantity is a constant conundrum in urology. Connecting urinalysis devices directly to the EHR is the perfect method with which to alleviate this problem. Now looking at urology in more detail to illustrate as an example, but can be applied to any speciality:

The urology data challenge

Urologists are typically very busy and have limited windows of time in which to see patients, therefore, every second counts. As every patient that they see is given a urinalysis (UA) test, optimizing this process is an effective way of making significant efficiency gains.

There are several factors that constitute a UA test, including 10 analytes (for instance, glucose and protein levels) plus details regarding color and clarity. Each of these elements has either a numerical or positive/negative answer that a staff member has to document before an appointment can continue. This is relatively complex to document in the EHR, taking a member of staff over 2 minutes to complete.

Just 30 UAs equates to 1 hour of wasted staff time.

When you consider that LPNs, RNs, MAs and Lab Techs (i.e. the members of staff that are commonly required in point-of-care result processing) cost an average of $16/hour, you can see how the costs can quickly add up when so much of their time is devoted solely to processing test results. Also, the process must be completed in quick succession, as there is no room for lag, which creates a high chance of error.

This process is unnecessarily strenuous for members of staff and has a marked impact on the number of patients that can be seen and the quality of healthcare that they experience. It can be improved for all those involved by utilizing Relaymed.

Automating urinalysis in primary care

Relaymed connects point-of-care devices to EHRs. This process is completely automated, meaning that results are available instantly and the staff burden from constant UA testing is minimized. This has a remarkable impact on practice efficiency, benefitting staff, providers and patients. Providers then have more time to spend in each appointment discussing plans and outcomes with patients. With less appointment lag, they can ultimately see more patients also.

Urology groups with several locations can benefit greatly from the procedural consistency that Relaymed brings. EHRs will contain standardized test results, making audits far simpler, given that records are complete and 100% accurate. While this is particularly helpful for group practices, it benefits practices of any size.

Results of Quality Control (QC) tests are also automatically captured by Relaymed. Through the myRelaymed web portal, you can run reports on these logs, making them easy to track and monitor. If you’re responsible for QC, especially across a group, this gives you one less thing to think about.

We discuss these benefits further in our article Improve Outcomes and Increase Satisfaction by Automating Point-of-Care Testing, which you can read here.

Siemens CLINITEK Compatible

As Relaymed distinctly benefits urology practices in primary care, we partnered with Siemens in order to make integrations with their industry leading CLINITEK device as straightforward as possible. We pride ourselves on being able to work with any device, however, through our partnership with Siemens, onboarding with Relaymed isn’t just quick, it’s practically instantaneous.

If your primary care practice currently uses the Siemens CLINITEK then find out more about our partnership in this article.